Hired girl

“ Why, Miss Sturgis, it’s never hard for a girl to get a job, —a,girl who’s got a profession, and who’s shown herself to be a first-rate stenographer. The offices downtown are just crazy to get hold of girls like you. ”

“ Especially has this been so in laying out schemes for vocational training, and we find the girl being ignored, not only on the usual ground that she is a girl, but for the additional, and not-to-be-questioned reason that it will not pay to give her instruction in any variety of skilled trades, because she will be but a short time in any occupation of the sort. ”

“ She could get many more places for girls, if they would go to the country; but they do not wish to go, and, if dissatisfied, be at the expense of returning. The girl may be deceived, by finding there are twice as many in the family as represented, or the work is much harder. Mrs. Y. learns the character of a girl that applies to her, and then registers it in her book. So ladies applying for a [Pg 405] girl have from her the true character. She has no difficulty in finding places for her girls. She is always busy but on a rainy day. ”

“ The girl emerging from high school and looking for work is usually on the lookout for what in a boy we call a "white-collar job." Especially in the case where the girl has been kept in school at more or less sacrifice on the part of her parents, both they and the girl feel that the extra years of schooling entitle her to a "high-class" occupation of some kind. Girls are far less willing than boys to "begin at the bottom" and work up through the various stages of apprenticeship to ultimate positions near the top. ”

“ Hundreds of thousands of girls and women are at work in the long-established women's employments, as factory workers, saleswomen, stenographers, house workers, telephone and telegraph operators, waitresses, milliners, dressmakers and seamstresses, teachers, and nurses.
Some opportunities for employment are close at hand; others are farther away. Sometimes it is best to begin with the nearest work. But in any case the girl should take time to think of her employment. ”

“ And what kind of a name have these girls now? What future have these women to look forward to? Generally the world's cold, nipping scorn, combined with ill-health and destitution. A girl would much rather work in a factory, or a 'saloon,' because she can be called 'Miss,' dress finer, and imagine she will be thought a lady! Poor girl! It is this delusion, this false pride, that crowds the streets nightly with pretty young girls, some of whom count only twelve short summers. ”

“ No school turned out better equipped girls, and none held a higher standard in college examinations. A Sunny Bank diploma was a sure passport. 65 When the girls worked they worked hard, and when playtime came it was enjoyed to the full. Naturally, with so many dispositions surrounding her, Miss Preston often in secret floundered in a “slough of despond,” for that which could influence one girl for her good might prove a complete failure when brought to bear upon another. ”

“ Having once obtained a position in a large store, the girl will find herself part of an establishment where perhaps hundreds or thousands of people are employed. It is probable that her position will be an easy one suited to her age, without much responsibility, and with small pay, but, if she shows interest and willingness to learn, she will be in line for promotion. There are many positions which carry with them great responsibility, and correspondingly large wages. A girl's chance to occupy some day such a position depends largely on herself. ”

“ The girl who leaves school at fourteen may find a place as messenger girl in a millinery shop or a millinery department. Some milliners make a special point of training their own helpers, and any girl who enters an establishment of this kind will receive valuable instruction. There is a danger, however, that the girl in some shops will find her work confined to running messages. ”

“ Henceforward the girl's training must face her double possibilities. She must not be allowed to have an eye single to making an industrial place for herself; nor can those who educate her fail to see the double work she must do.
Any consideration of the subject of girls' work outside the home or work in the home for financial return must begin with a general survey of the field of industry, discovering what women have done and are doing, together with the effects of gainful occupation upon the character and efficiency of women. ”

“ The household assistant is not only a helper, but at times a producer; the telephone operator and the librarian are distributors as well as public helpers; the secretary is an office worker, although she is a personal assistant to her employer as well. For successful work in any of these lines, however, a girl must possess certain definite characteristics, to which her peculiar talent or tendency may give the determining direction as she chooses her work. ”

“ That's why the country girls don't like to hire in town, because they dassent set front with the missus. Here last market-day Sophy Haberbush she conceited she'd like oncet to hire out in town, and she ast me would I go with her after market to see a lady that advertised in the newspaper fur a girl, and I sayed no, I wouldn't mind. ”

“ Salesmanship. Passing from the class of work which has to do with making things to that group of occupations which has to do with the distribution of various products to the consumer, we shall naturally consider, first of all, the saleswoman. In any given group of young and untrained girls drawn as in our schools from varying environment and heredity, the natural saleswomen will probably be in the minority. I do not mean that girls may not often express a desire to "work in a store" as apparently the easiest and most immediate employment for the untrained girl. ”

“ If the teacher is hard to get, she is also hard to hold; for the bachelor population being largely in the majority, there are many flattering inducements of a matrimonial character held out to the girl teacher to settle down permanently with a young farmer, doctor, real estate agent, lawyer, or merchant. You could never believe what inducements these sly fellows hold out. Never!
In town our girls find many diversions. She may skate, ride, play golf, basket-ball, or tennis, according as her purse or preference may dictate. ”

“ Unless you have friends in Paris with whom you could stay, we should not advise you to try to enter a dressmaking firm in that city. It is possible that the Secretary of the Foreign Registry, Girls’ Friendly Society, 10, Holbein Place, Sloane Square, S.W., could advise you in the matter; but probably the best firms might have no vacancy for an English girl, and the less good might prove to be extremely undesirable. It would be far wiser, in our opinion, to apprentice yourself to a London firm, concerning which your relations and friends could make the requisite inquiries.—2. ”

“ Flaming with enthusiasm for this ideal, over a hundred national secretaries are carrying on the work among nine hundred local societies in this country, and over thirty are sent to Turkey, Japan, India, China, and South America, that the girls of other lands also may learn to know the good that girls can do for girls.
For this association follows the theory that "every girl needs help, and every girl can give help." The declaration strikes to the bottom of things psychological in girl-life. Girls need each other. No one can help a girl like a girl. ”

“ The student who takes up college work, not as a specialized training, but as a completion of her general education, stands somewhat by herself. Such a girl may perhaps put off vocational decision until she is part way through her college years. The college sometimes awakens ambitions and brings to light abilities not hitherto discovered; and even when this does not occur, the choice may be made from the highest and most responsible positions filled by women. ”

“ A girl of intelligence and ability can make enough to keep her when out of work. Some employers keep their hands all the time, for the sake of having them the next season. The girls employed in the business are mostly Irish and Americans. ”

“ They pass silly girlhoods and usually develop into plump, amiable women, devoted to husbands and babies, and given to talking about servants and clothes when they don't talk about the husbands and babies. We must do all we can for such girls, see that they are carefully taught and zealously guarded. No young gentleman calls here on reception night unless I have had a written permission from the parents of the girl upon whom he calls; but because a few of the girls are silly, I will not shut the sensible girls away from social training. ”

“ If we take the whole domestic group which includes laundry and charing as well as service, we find it takes up 34·8 of the total girls employed. [Pg x] Considering how much complaint is frequently made of the unwillingness of girls to enter these ancient and traditional paths, it is worth noting that one girl in every three actually does so, and the girls who stay at home to help their mothers, if we knew their numbers, would bring this proportion up a good deal higher. ”

“ Girls who must take up factory work should at least be enabled to choose among factories intelligently, and if possible should be fortified with an avocation that will supply them with the interest their daily task fails to inspire and that will provide an anchor against the instability toward which the factory girl tends.
Millinery class in a trade school. Where trade schools do not offer such training, there are opportunities for apprentice work for girls
The possibilities for apprentice work with dressmakers or milliners or in other handwork should also be made known. ”

“ Actual trade experience will teach her a great deal. If, however, she is obliged to leave school at fourteen, she should at least have had the advantage of the instruction in sewing which is given in the public schools. It is probable that she may be obliged, when she enters a dressmaking establishment, to act as a messenger girl. ”

“ I. Female-Impersonation.
In Part Three, I shall outline what kind of adult career is the natural sequel of the childhood and adolescence described in Part Two; what kind of adult career is bound up with the physique and psyche with which I am endowed. I shall disclose what Providence had in store for the youthful religious prodigy of the Connecticut hills—the delicate, lilliputian, chickenhearted girl-boy—after he had been swallowed up in New York's millions. ”

“ The untrained girl who naturally falls into the service group has a rather poor outlook for congenial and successful work as conditions exist. With ability which she perhaps does not possess, and with training which she cannot afford, she would naturally become a teacher, a nurse, a private secretary, a librarian, or a social worker. Without training, she finds little except domestic service open to her; and domestic service finds little favor with girls, or with students of vocational possibilities for girls. ”

“ We may not perhaps leave the questions involved in a discussion of vocations as they affect homemaking without noticing that certain occupations are considered especially dangerous to the moral stability of girls. Nursing, private secretaryship, and domestic service present dangers in direct proportion as they bring about isolated companionship for the girl and a male employer. Girls must not enter these employments without the knowledge of how to protect themselves from lowering influences. ”

“ Salesmanship for girls, especially in the great department stores of the cities, is a vocation of at least doubtful advantage for the home-minded girl to pursue as a step in her training for managing her own home. ”

“ At first it was all thrill. That's bound to be when the Harry-type—a born fighter and philanderer—leader of men and misleader of women—fills up a girl's horizon with his telephone-calls, his invitations, his flatteries—and himself.
Feverishly happy, I blessed the job that kept me where he was.
(And now this! This!)
My job was one of those that are described as "thundering good for a girl." It brought me in nearly three pounds a week, for I was secretary to a quite important official in one of those big rabbit-warren buildings in Whitehall that we call Ministries. ”

“ No, on the spur of the moment, I am almost sure that I don't know any working girl who might be described in just those terms. There are doubtless many working girls who are ladies, but they would scarcely be likely to call themselves by such an antiquated name. ”

“ It is piecework. Girls earn from $4 to $6 a week. It does not take a smart girl more than eight days to learn. The busy time commences in April. It is an increasing business. The foreman at A.'s factory said a nice, steady, cleanly girl, that has sufficient dignity to command respect, can always get work. One that is not very sensitive to ridicule, and independent in the performance of duty, will be sure to succeed in that establishment; for so many learners are taken in and need supervision, that such a one is sure to be prized. He has seventy-five girls. ”

“ A serious obstacle to wise choice on the part of young girls who are pushing into industrial occupations is the uncertainty of their continuing as workers outside the home. The average length of the girl's industrial life is computed to be only about five years. She enters upon work at an age when it is often impossible to tell whether she will marry or remain single. She is usually unable to know whether or not she will desire to marry. The great majority of girls have therefore no stable conditions upon which to build a choice. ”